Flava Flav just called, and he wants his grille back. It’s not gold and it’s not a garish piece of dental ornamentation, but this Nova wears a grille that makes hip-hop artists weep in envy. Even from 100 feet away, the Nova’s front end looks like—for lack of a better term—it’s all up in your grille. Although traditionalists and the faint of heart will scoff at the Nova’s radically augmented sheetmetal, therein lies the beauty of the car. It’s a polarizing exercise in artistic expression and fabrication excellence that seemingly pushes hot rodding forward 10 years into the future, opinions be damned. Try to spot a single panel that hasn’t been cut or reshaped in some way, and you’ll fail every single time. So whether you love it or hate it, wherever this ’67 Chevy II rolls, you’re going to notice it.

2/22

For a place that hasn’t been building cars all that long, the Roadster Shop has exploded onto the scene big time. Although the shop has been around for more than 20 years, it didn’t start building turnkey cars until 2004, when Neal Gerber and his sons—Phil and Jeremy—took over the joint. Since then, the Roadster Shop has become a major player in the street rod and Pro Touring circuits, winning the Goodguys Street Machine of the Year award in 2009 with a wicked ’62 Corvette. As any of their high-profile g-Machines will attest, this isn’t just some run-of-the-mill muscle car restoration facility. To them, the hackneyed loud-paint-and-billet-wheels formula is the stuff of amateurs. While many car builders espouse the virtues of classic Detroit styling, the Roadster Shop finds extremely labor-intensive ways to modify those hallowed body lines for 21st century appeal.

3/22

Creative minds often do their best work when given free reign—and a very big budget—to do as they please, and that’s exactly what happened with Alex Covington’s ’67 Nova. “Initially, Alex just wanted a unique-looking Nova. About a quarter of the way into the project, he gave us the green light to go all in and build the baddest Nova ever,” Phil says. “At that point, we knew we could build something to compete for the SMOY award, and we named the car Innovator. We wanted the Nova to look like a modern concept car, and that required dramatically changing the body lines to convey a sense of speed. The goal was to sharpen up the lines to give the car a wedge-shaped profile. We got with Eric Brockmeyer, sent him a multipage list of design elements we wanted to incorporate into the car, and got a rendering drawn up.”

4/22On a stock Chevy II, the front wheel opening sits higher than the rear wheel opening. To get them to match, the front opening was lowered. While the front wheels merely look like they were pushed farther to the corners, the rear wheels have actually been relocated rearward 1 inch.

Right from the get-go, the Roadster Shop crew targeted several key areas that needed a major revamp. “Everyone hated the big stock molding that ran down the side of the car. To get rid of it, we cut off the bottom half of the fenders, doors, and quarter-panels from the beltline down,” Phil says. “After we fabricated new panels for the bottom of the car, we created a new body line positioned much lower than where the factory molding used to be, coming off of the fenders and into the doors. The new line continues again above the wheel arch in the quarter-panels, where it leads into the rear bumper. The wheel openings have been changed as well for a more swooped-back appearance that makes it look like the wheels are pushed farther to the corners. The fenders were also re-sloped and reshaped where they meet the headlights to make them look less droopy and give them a more aggressive profile.”

Moving from the beltline upward, the next order of business was addressing the way-too-upright profile of the greenhouse area. “You might not notice it at first, but the roof on this car is much different from a stock Nova,” Phil says. “From a side profile, the roof on stock Novas looks higher in the front than in the back. To give the car a much more sinister and sleeker look, we cut ¾ inch out of the A-pillars, leaned them back, and then angled the front of the roof downward. It gives the car a much more modern wedge shape.”

While much of the Nova’s sheetmetal was tweaked simply for the sake of aesthetics, a good chunk of fabrication was dedicated to custom pieces that not only look trick, but are functional as well. The low-slung custom rocker panels wrap into a one-off front splitter. A large center opening feeds air to the radiator, while smaller side vents route air to the brakes. The bumpers were also narrowed and fit closer to the body, a touch that seems so ordinary in comparison. There’s a double-layered bumper in the back to match the front, but it isn’t merely an exercise in aesthetics. Attached to it is a center diffuser tray that smooths out airflow beneath the car, and a pair of vents behind each wheel. “The goal here was to tie all the elements in the rear of the car together,” Phil says. “We first tried attaching flat pieces to the bottom of the car, but it looked too smooth so we decided to integrate a speared center diffuser and stepped side vents into the pan assembly. Much of the shape of the pan was determined by the lower valence and rear bumper. The pan also conceals the fuel pump and filters as well as the rearend vent, without restricting airflow to those components.”

5/22Under the hood, the engine shroud, radiator core support, and inner fenders are all custom-fabricated pieces. In order to feed cool air to the motor without resorting to a cowl-induction hood, custom vents were built where the stock hood hinges would normally attach. Twin snorkels route air from the vents up along the inner fender, behind the radiator, and into the throttle body.

Almost lost in the melee of custom metalwork are engine, driveline, and chassis hardware that are just as impressive as the rest of the overall vehicle package. Serving as a solid foundation is a custom Roadster Shop full-frame chassis. While the company does offer a production Chevy II chassis, this one has been tweaked specifically for the Innovator Nova. In order to stuff massive 10-inch-wide wheels up front and 12 inchers in the back, the framerails have been moved several inches inward. Likewise, the rails have also been kicked upward so that the side-outlet exhaust, which runs inside passages in the frame, doesn’t hang too low. Up front, the frame supports Roadster Shop twin A-arms, C6 Corvette aluminum spindles, Afco coilovers, and a splined Speedway sway bar. In the rear is a three-link suspension arranged much like that of a late-model Mustang, in addition to two extra transverse-mounted links attached to the rearend pumpkin in a Watt’s layout. This allows for nearly infinite adjustment of the instant center and roll center. The custom seven-spoke wheels—measuring 18x10 and 20x12 in the front and rear, respectively—are Roadster Shop one-offs, and they’re covered in Michelin Pilot Sport rubber. Baer 14-inch rotors and six-piston calipers at each corner provide the negative g’s.

6/22Under the hood, the engine shroud, radiator core support, and inner fenders are all custom-fabricated pieces. In order to feed cool air to the motor without resorting to a cowl-induction hood, custom vents were built where the stock hood hinges would normally attach. Twin snorkels route air from the vents up along the inner fender, behind the radiator, and into the throttle body.

Scooting the Nova down the road with a big wallop is a 454ci Mast Motorsports LS-series small-block. Based on a GM Performance Parts LSX block, it boasts a forged Callies rotating assembly, Mast LS7 cylinder heads, and a custom hydraulic roller cam. The behemoth small-block is good for 700 hp and 611 lb-ft of torque. Backing it up are a Tremec T56 six-speed manual transmission and a custom Roadster Shop 9-inch rearend. Exhaust exits through custom 1.875-inch long-tube headers, Borla mufflers, and dual 3-inch side pipes that dump right in front of the rear tires.

7/22Under the hood, the engine shroud, radiator core support, and inner fenders are all custom-fabricated pieces. In order to feed cool air to the motor without resorting to a cowl-induction hood, custom vents were built where the stock hood hinges would normally attach. Twin snorkels route air from the vents up along the inner fender, behind the radiator, and into the throttle body.

When the dust settled at the 2011 Goodguys Nationals in Columbus this July, Innovator was crowned Street Machine of the Year. As truly astonishing as the Nova’s custom sheetmetal may be, what’s even more shocking is watching the Roadster Shop crew beat on it through the autocross. Its lap time of 35.30 seconds was fastest out of all the SMOY finalists, and was even good enough for a 17th Place overall finish out of a field of 63 cars. That’s not too shabby at all for a car that had yet to see the cones before the Goodguys event.

Despite all the areas in which it excels, how much you like this Nova all comes down to the most polarizing aspect of the entire machine: the front end. Paying homage to the computer age and the car’s distinctly futuristic vibe, the grille design is patterned after a computer circuit board. Likewise, the simple factory headlight design has been morphed into a dual-stack arrangement, surrounded by a billet trim ring housing LED running lights. The look might not be for everyone, but the Nova’s menacing mug certainly draws attention. And when the mission at hand is pushing the envelope of automotive design and fabrication, that’s precisely the point. A grille that makes hip-hop stars jealous is merely an added bonus.